Quarterly Round-Up - Summer 2007

This quarter has been dominated by our Xbox 360 work, in conjunction with Rubicon Mobile. We are now approaching code-complete for a product primarily aimed at Japan. While this is a tough market for the Xbox, being the home turf for Sony and Nintendo, it is one in which Microsoft is very pro-active. In this zone there is also the much larger potential market of south-east Asia as a whole, in particular China. AI Factory have 2 further products already lined-up specifically for this market. The other major work-thread in parallel has been devoted to the near completion of a new bio-simulation product, which takes already developed technology further down the path of complete realism. This is still under-wraps.

Between the Xbox milestones we have also been eyeing the DS and Wii markets. We already have one of our engines appearing on the DS shortly, but are looking for further opportunities here. The success of the DS has attracted many publishers. We note no less than 7 different Shogi programs are available for the DS, which makes adding a further one quite difficult. However one thread that has appeared on the DS is educational and teaching systems. As it happens we also have a strong role in this field through our game-teaching system. This is already embedded into our Shogi program and provides a very powerful and agreeable means of learning that game. The same technology will also slot into Chess and other such games. We suggest that developers and publishers interested in a collaboration for products with a strong teaching component consider talking to us. Our ready-made technology allows a game product to not just provide an AI opponent, but also a very attractive means of learning a game.

As for the Wii, like the DS, this has clearly been a very successful platform. The uptake of this innovative product has exposed new game-playing communities. We have no presence on this, but have a host of game engines that could be ported to it.. We are looking for publishers and developers who are looking to create Wii products, but need game engines. Collaboration with us may provide a convenient means of achieving this. Our engines are now distributed to so many arenas, from consoles, mobiles, PCs and even in-flight games. This is a well-trodden and reliable path to product completion.

The main theme of this quarter's articles is our flexible game development system we use in-house, which has been developed over 4 years and provides a convenient testbed for developing and testing our new games. This month shows how our system, which is geared to turn-based games, was successfully but improbably used for developing an aquarium emulation, proving just how general the system actually is. Our record for turning a game specification into fully-working product with AI, move review, takeback, player interface and load/save game was just one day, which is tough to match! Again we are interested in opportunities to further utilise this technology, so if you have a game concept that you need to realise, then we may well be the fastest path to realisation.

The next quarter may see yet one further step further into bio-simulation. This is still on the drawing board but if it goes ahead, will keep us occupied for the next 2 quarters!

Quarterly Round-Up - Spring 2007

Quarterly Round-Up - Winter 2006

Quarterly Round-Up - Autumn 2006

Quarterly Round-Up - Summer 2006

Quarterly Round-Up - Spring 2006

Quarterly Round-Up - Winter 2005

Quarterly Round-Up - Autumn 2005

Quarterly Round-Up - Summer 2005

Quarterly Round-Up - Spring 2005